What does one do in Atlantic City when the money is gone and there's time to
waste? Go on a Monopoly Quest! I thought I'd find all the streets and take
photos and note whether they are indeed worthy of their property values as
in the game. Here is what I discovered: Mediterranean Avenue
and Baltic Avenue
were not so nice neighborhoods, but I didn't note much of a difference in
Connecticut Avenue,
Vermont Avenue
or
Oriental Avenue.
Oriental only had a couple boarded up houses on it and hardly even a street.
Both colors on the board and the corresponding streets seemed to have it
right as far as value goes. Virginia Avenue
and States Avenue
were slightly better I guess, but also run down a bit; I could
NOT find St.Charles Place! We went to a gas station
and got a city map from the attendant and it wasn't on the map. A
Google search today revealed that St. Charles may be in neighboring
Oceanview. If it runs into Atlantic City, I didn't find
it. NEWS! Thank you to
Ms. Rhodes, from the Tourism office who did some research for me....St.
Charles Place was once located between New Jersey and Delaware Avenues.
This is now the site of the Showboat Casino.
A newspaper article sent to me by a visitor to the site explains that In
its heyday, from the 1920s to the 1940s, St. Charles Place was an avenue of
well-kept, exclusive homes. It ran one block, from the boardwalk to Pacific
Avenue between New Jersey and Delaware avenues. Then St. Charles Place saw
a decline in the mid- to late-1960s, along with the rest of the city. In
1968, the city's board of commissioners gave up its rights to the street as
part of an urban renewal project. What used to be St. Charles Place is now a
fenced-in, valet parking lot for Showboat casino. Moving on to New York Avenue,
was a larger more wider street with more businesses and some slightly better
housing was mixed in. Tennessee Avenuewas
much the same, andSt. JamesPlace(I thought I took pictures of
these two, but I don't think they came out) was a shorter street, but had
similar appearance. KentuckyAvenue
and Indiana Avenues
were about the same too, though there were a few more grassy areas here and
there.. I could
not find Illinois Avenue again after I know we passed it. I
couldn't snap a photo because we could not stop to do so. Scott noted that
sandwiched in between (parallel) Illinois Avenue and Kentucky was Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. Blvd. Noting that the signs were blue and white as compared
to green, Scott suggested that the name might have been changed even if
temporarily. I concurred, but was adamant I was correct in saying I
SAW Illinois Avenue. It
turns out we were both correct. My research suggests that most of
the signs have changed and that a couple have not (maybe by accident); however
try as we might, we could not relocate the the street to take a snapshot. NEWS!The travel and tourism office
does indeed confirm that the street name has been changed. I don't
know though if this is only temporary or not. Heading from the lower middle class areas to the upper middle class yellow
areas, we did discover that yes, those are better located. Atlantic Avenue
and Ventnor Avenue
are major thoroughfares and in the west end of the city, there are a couple
blocks of nice homes, rather large homes with small lawns and they are kept
proudly. Though the business areas didn't always look great, they were on
major traffic areas and that would indeed bring the value up a bit. Marvin Gardens
did not exist...or so I thought. It wasn't on my map and we didn't see
it. But a search on Google shows it's a smaller street located off
of Atlantic Avenue and a couple blocks down from Delaware. I found out
that there was a prominent entertainer names Marvin Gardens. Marvin Gardens,
was a witty singer/songwriter noted for his risqué lyrics and "life on the
edge", who died of a massive coronary-infarction at age 42. He is best known
for the song "Why Don't We Get Drunk," which was popularized by singer Jimmy Buffett in the '70s. A Gardens came from
a prominent Atlantic City, N.J. familyA person sent this via email:Marvin gardens was a pen name used by Jimmy
Buffett; he would also use the name when checking into hotels. Marvin
gardens was also listed in some of his albums as an musician or writer.
However, I don't know how true that is, but it's something to
look into. NEWS!
Marvin Gardens is not in Atlantic City! Marvin Gardens is located at
the edge of Margate City just across Fredericksburg Avenue from Ventnor
City, two suburbs of Atlantic City. There is a circle with four
short drives at the corner of Ventnor and Fredericksburg. There's a
sign that says "welcome to" located on the circle (info submitted by
'another street finding enthusiast'). It's spelled incorrectly for the game too.
The name is meant to be the mergence of Marten and Ventnor: Marven not
Marvin Gardens! Why is it spelled Marvin then? According to an
online article, "Parker Brothers refused every overture from the
commissioners of Margate City to alter it; the name of the famous movie that
takes off on the Monopoly game is "The King of Marvin Gardens". I did not see the west end of Pacific Avenue,
Pennsylvania Avenue
or
the North end of North Carolina Avenues,
which I suppose had nicer properties there too. That seems to be where
some are coagulated. Yes, that's an "adult"
peep show/bookstore shop sign in the photo. There are a few places
like this throughout the city. As for Park Place,
it was difficult to find and is another street with a blue sign. I am
not sure why this is. There's not much on Park Place. I noted
another Park Place in Ocean View and maybe this is where the homes are. The only thing noted on Park Place was
Bally's hotel/casino. Bally's is on the Boardwalk as well, probably
because it was the premiere hotel of it's time. That is of course till
Caesar's and Trump moved in. At the time, this would have made that
property THE most expensive in the city. It's just a guess. Boardwalk
is not a street really, but the actual Boardwalk which runs about 4.5 miles
along the beach. Built with wooden planks by the railroads who were
tired of sand getting in their railcars, hotels are strewn along
the Boardwalk (much like the Las Vegas "strip"), as are many businesses and
a shopping mall. Indeed, this is the epicenter of Atlantic City and hence is
where you would build if you could as that's where all the people coagulate.

Well, that's it for the streets! But what about the rest of the
Monopoly Board? Well, there is theJailand Just visiting(see
Jail)squares. Not wanting to be known as a harsh area for
crime, the Jail
is called the "Public Safety" building. It's a newer looking building
and is one of the nicest in the area. Free Parking? Well pretty
much there is no free parking which makes you feel relief when you land on
that square in the game... but I was able to find ONE sign that noted Free
Parking
for it's customers. What could I put here for the Go square?
Well, along the major thoroughfares, in the daytime you will get a ton of
green lights telling you to go (and you are lucky as we drove down about 50
lights it seemed without one red light! At night you're not as lucky.
People coming and going make it much more difficult to go, making it very
cool when you can hit more than two or three greens in a row. So
Go is
important and you feel like you've won if you "go" through a
lot of lights! The photo shows one red light which we calculated so I could
take a photo. Note all the other green lights in the background.
Now there are the cards...Community Chestis the money making golden hotels. Intermixed is the array of
home styles, businesses from every culture and religions of all nations.
Slummy areas with a nice little park mixed in; it's a
community chest of money making hotels and glittering signs that look
like jewels in the night sky. Chance
is easy! Every time you stick a coin or bill in a slot, you are taking a
chance!

Luxury Tax
and Income Tax ?
You'll pay big taxes if you win any large sums or money or one of the cars like
the Ferrari we saw at one of the casinos (photo borrowed as Scott's photo didn't
make it). Big taxes on shows and hotels
are around and parking and tolls are ways you are taxed! Yep, you are
taxed big and frequently. You'll be paying the IRS if
you happen to win big as well.
Railroading
in Atlantic City started in the mid-1850s with the Camden & Atlantic Railroads.
That line became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Years later, the Philadelphia & Atlantic City Railroad were built. That became
part of the Reading Railroad.
The Pennsylvania and Reading tracks were side by side. The Baltimore & Ohio
(B&O) Railroad
didn’t have direct access into Atlantic City but ran trains on the Reading's
rails. It basically ceased to exist in 1987 when it merged with
C&O and ended up called CSX. But there's a museum for it in Baltimore. The
Pennsylvania and Reading lines in South Jersey merged in 1933, creating the
Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines. Shore Fast Line (Shortline?) ran
trolley service between Atlantic City, Ocean City and the mainland. That line
went out of business in the late 1940s. In the early 1980s, all train service to
Atlantic City and other shore points ended. Alas, there were no railroads that I saw,
but the
Shortline Railroad does or did exist and indeed did go through Atlantic City
or is/was based there: http://www.njshortline.com/ (sorry, could not
find a photo). However, I am not sure if the there is a particular
railroad with that name, or if Shortline refers to the New Jersey Railway's run
or the Shore Fast Line. I learned that many railways have what they call short
lines, which means it's not a coast to coast run. Lastly, the Electric company is booming I am sure as Atlantic
City is built on the night life. Waterworks? Well there's
plenty of water in the ocean but the inhabitants need drinkable water and
there's a lot of water needed. Additionally, a lot of people were making their
own waterworks as they lost lots of cash at the casinos. Sorry, I didn't see the plants and don't have any
photos. If we go back, I'll search them out. Monopoly Tokens: Why
the thimble? Wheelbarrow? Dog? Horse? Iron? Hat and Boat? The first
game (produced in 1935) did not include tokens. Charles Darrow, recommended
players use household items like buttons and pennies to move around the board.
Parker Brothers decided to include tokens in the game, and in 1935-36 included
four small wax wood pieces. In 1937, decided to produce die-cast metal tokens
that were common objects found in households across America. This brought some
of what you see today: the introduction of the flatiron, purse, lantern, car,
thimble, shoe, top hat, and the rocking horse. The top hat was modeled after the
chapeau of the game's Chairman of the Board, Mr. Monopoly, and the car; a1930s
roadster. Two additional tokens, the battleship and the cannon, were also added
in 1937. They were used at the time, in another Parker Brothers game called
Conflict, which made it easy to add them. These 10 tokens--flatiron, purse,
lantern, car, thimble, shoe, top hat, rocking horse, battleship and cannon--were
used until 1942. World War II brought a metal shortage in the United States. As
a result, during the years 1943-47, the games contained tokens made out of wood.
Shortly after the end of World War II the metal tokens were brought back. The
early 1950s brought the addition of three new tokens and the departure of three
original tokens. The lantern, purse and rocking horse were replaced by the dog
(Mr. Monopoly's dog, Scotty), the wheelbarrow and the horse and rider.

STORY: Atlantic City Blinked:

MONOPOLY® game
properties were named for Atlantic City streets -- and not the other way
around. When the city tried changing some of the street names made famous
by the game, people were upset. In 1972, and Atlantic City launched a campaign to improve its image.
Part of the campaign
was a proposal by the Commissioner of Public Works to change the names of Baltic
and Mediterranean Avenues to Fairmont and Melrose. News of the proposed change
didn't sit well with the public. When the Commission met at a
public hearing to vote on the issue, they were joined by hundreds of citizens
who plead to save the street names.

Perhaps the argument that moved the
Commissioner most was came from a letter from then Parker Brothers president
Edward P. Parker, who wrote, “Would you like to be the man to tell a MONOPOLY®
fanatic from California that the streets he came to see no longer exist? Would
you be willing to take the responsibility for an invasion by hordes of
protesting MONOPOLY® players, all demanding that you go directly to jail,
without even the dignity of passing GO?” The Commissioner had heard enough. A vote was
taken and the outcome was unanimous -- the names Baltic and Mediterranean would
remain; a victory for
the MONOPOLY® game lovers everywhere.